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but escaped. Pretoria, Rustenberg, Lydenburg, and other smaller towns had been placed in a position of defence under the directions of Colonel Bellairs, who remained in command at Pretoria, the garrison consisting of a small number of troops and the loyal inhabitants. Sir George Colley, with about 1400 men, marched towards the Transvaal frontier, but before reaching it he found, on the 24th of January 1881, that the Boers had already invaded Natal and occupied Laing’s Nek. He pitched his camp at Ingogo. Majuba Hill, 1881.Having been defeated at Laing’s Nek, and suffered considerable loss in an engagement near Ingogo, Colley took a force to the top of Majuba, a mountain overlooking the Boer camp and the nek. He went up during the night, and in the morning was attacked and overwhelmed by the Boers (Feb. 27). Of the 554 men who constituted the British force on Majuba, 92 were killed and 134 wounded, Sir George Colley himself being amongst those who were slain.
Ten days previous to the disaster at Majuba Sir Evelyn Wood had arrived at Newcastle with reinforcements. On Colley’s death he assumed command. Negotiations had been opened with the Boers before the attack on Majuba and the British cabinet refused to allow that disaster to influence their action. On the 6th of March a truce was concluded and on the 21st terms of peace were arranged between the Boer triumvirate and Sir Evelyn Wood. The most important of these terms were that the Transvaal should have complete internal self-government under British suzerainty and that a British resident should be stationed at Pretoria. Another article reserved to her majesty “the control of the external relations of the said state, including the conclusion of treaties and the conduct of diplomatic intercourse with foreign powers,” and the right to march troops through the Transvaal. The boundaries of the state were defined, and to them the Transvaal was strictly to adhere. These terms practically conceded all that the Boers demanded, and were never regarded as anything else than surrender either by the Boers or the loyalists in South Africa. The agreement had hardly been concluded when Sir Frederick Roberts arrived at the Cape with 10,000 troops, and after spending forty-eight hours there returned to England.
In the meantime, while the British general was making a treaty under the instructions of British ministers on the frontier, the beleaguered garrisons of Pretoria, Potchefstroom, and other smaller towns were gallantly holding their own. The news of the surrender reached Pretoria through Boer sources, and when first received there was laughed at by the garrison and inhabitants as a Boer joke. When the bitter truth was at length realized, the British flag was dragged through the dust of Pretoria streets by outraged Englishmen. Presently there assembled in Pretoria a commission to elaborate the terms of peace. On the one side were the Boer triumvirate, on the other Sir Evelyn Wood, Sir Hercules Robinson (Frere’s successor in the high commissionership), and Sir J. H. de Villiers, chief justice of Cape Colony, while President Brand of the Orange Free State gave the commission the benefit of his advice. The terms agreed upon were drawn up in the form of a convention and signed (Aug. 3). Pretoria Convention.The preamble to the Pretoria Convention of 1881 contained in brief but explicit terms the grant of self-government to the Boers, subject to British suzerainty, In later years, when the Boers desired to regard the whole of this convention (and not merely the articles) as cancelled by the London Convention of 1884, and with it the suzerainty, which was only mentioned in the preamble, Mr Chamberlain, a member of the cabinet of 1880–1885, pointed out that if the preamble to this instrument were considered cancelled, so also would be the grant of self-government.
The government of the state was handed over to the triumvirate on the 8th of August and was continued in their name until May 1883, when Kruger was elected president.
C. From the Retrocession to 1899.—The retrocession of the Transvaal was a terrible blow to the loyalists. The Boers, on the other hand, found themselves in better plight than they had ever been before. Their native foes had been crushed by British forces; their liabilities were consolidated into a debt to Great Britain, to be repaid at convenience and leisure—as a matter of fact, not even interest was paid for some time. If ever a small state was well treated by a large one, the Transvaal was so in the retrocession of 1881. Unfortunately, this magnanirnity was forthcoming after defeat. It appeared as though a virtue had been made of a necessity, and the Boers never regarded it in any other light.
The new volksraad had scarcely been returned and the Pretoria Convention ratified (Oct. 25) before a system of government concessions to private individuals was started. The New Régime.These concessions, in so far as they prejudiced the commerce and general interests of the inhabitants, consisted chiefly in the granting of monopolies. Among the first monopolies which were granted in 1882 was one for the manufacture of spirituous liquor. The system continued steadily down to 1899, by which time railways, dynamite, spirits, iron, sugar, wool, bricks, jam, paper and a number of other things were all of them articles of monopoly. In 1882 also began that alteration of the franchise law which subsequently developed into positive exclusion of practically all save the original Boer burghers of the country from the franchise. In 1881, on the retrocession, full franchise rights could be obtained after two years’ residence; in 1882 the period of residence was increased to five years. Meanwhile the land-hunger of the Boers became stimulated rather than checked by the regaining of the independence of their country. On the western border, where the natives were of less warlike character than those on their southern and northern frontiers, intrigues were already going on with petty tribal chiefs, and the Boers drove out a portion of the Barolongs from their lands, setting up the so-called republics of Stellaland and Goshen. This act called forth a protest from the 15th Lord Derby (now secretary of state for the colonies), stating that he could not recognize the right of Boer freebooters to set up governments of their own on the Transvaal borders. This protest had no effect upon the freebooters, who issued one proclamation after another, until in November 1883 they united the two new republics under the title of the “United States of Stellaland.” Simultaneously with this “irresponsible” movement for expansion, President Kruger proceeded to London to interview Lord Derby and endeavour to induce him to dispense with the suzerainty, and to withdraw other clauses in the Pretoria Convention on foreign relations and natives, which were objectionable from the Boer point of view. Moreover, Kruger requested that the term “South African Republic” should be substituted for Transvaal State.
The result was the London Convention of the 27th of February 1884. In this document a fresh set of articles was substituted for those of the Pretoria Convention of 1881. In the articles of the new convention the boundaries were once more defined, concessions being made to the Transvaal on the Bechuanaland frontier, and to them the republic was bound to “strictly adhere.” In what followed it must always be remembered that Lord Derby began by emphatically rejecting the first Boer draft of a treaty on the ground that no treaty was possible except between equal sovereign states. London Convention, 1884.Moreover, it is undeniable that Lord Derby acted as though he was anxious to appear to be giving the Boers what they wanted. He would not formally abolish the suzerainty, but he was willing not to mention it; and though, in substituting new articles for those of the Pretoria Convention he left the preamble untouched, he avoided anything which could commit the Boer delegates to a formal recognition of that fact. On the other hand, he was most indignant when in the House of Lords he was accused by Lord Cairns of impairing British interests and relinquishing the queen’s suzerainty. He declared that he had preserved the thing in its substance, if he had not actually used the word; and this view of the matter was always officially maintained in the colonial office (which, significantly enough,
